1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming device for printing print data received from a terminal device through a communication network.
2. Description of the Related Art
The image forming device is widely used in offices and the like as a multifunction peripheral having various functions such as a copy function, a scan function, and a facsimile function. The recent image forming device is connected with a plurality of terminal devices through a communication network such as a Local Area Network (LAN), and further has a printer function for outputting print data received from the terminal device.
However, such an image forming device constantly executes the printing of the received print data when receiving the print data from the terminal device. Therefore, even the print data that a user does not desire to print is sometimes printed.
Therefore, there is provided a print processing system, which stores in advance the terminal information in which printing is permitted for every connection mode, for printing the print data when matching with the terminal information read out from the received print data.
The print processing system requests the user to input in advance the terminal information in which printing is permitted from a registration screen to prevent the printing of the print data received from the unintended terminal device. However, the input of the terminal information is a troublesome task for the user. In particular, when the user inputs a MAC address for the terminal information, the address needs to be checked by opening the DOS screen, which is a very large load for the user.
In the print processing system, the printing is stopped when the terminal information read out from the print data does not match the stored terminal information. However, the user sometimes desires the printing of the received print data even if the received terminal information does not match the stored terminal information. For example, the print data is sometimes transmitted to the multifunction peripheral from a terminal device installed in a division different from the installed division of the multifunction peripheral, the terminal device in which the terminal information is not stored in a storage unit of the multifunction peripheral, according to the request of the user of the installed division of the multifunction peripheral. In such a case, the transmitted print data is not printed in the print processing system. Therefore, if the terminal information of the terminal of the transmission source of the print data is not stored, the printing is not carried out even if it is the print data the user desires to print.